Overseas study

AUSTRALIA is being urged to spend almost A$10 million (nearly Pounds sterling 5 million) on measures to give Australian scientists access to three overseas research facilities. The Australian Science and Technology Council said in a report published last week that the costs of setting up such facilities in Australia would be prohibitive.

The report, Small Country-Big Science, called on the government to contribute 1.5 per cent of the annual operating budget of the Institut Laue-Langevin in France to give Australian scientists access to its neutron beam facility. Scientists should also be sent to the synchrotron light source at Tsukuba, Japan, and to the particle accelerators at CERN in Switzerland.

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